"My lord, you called me. I come. Wait! Wait! What is that light! My lord! I hear you! My God!"
"For God's sake, Bill, it's just twenty stitches."
As Nurse Joy struggled to keep a steady hand (as opposed to laughing and stabbing a vein), Bill, who was seated on the table, flashed a smile towards Lanette, whose body was turned away. He removed his free hand from his forehead and straightened from his lean back. Apparently, his attempt at melodrama had no more effect on the woman than the reality of the needle piercing his skin.
"If it's just twenty stitches, my dear, then why do you look away?"
Lanette gritted her teeth. "Because it's disgusting to watch."
"It's a simple matter of science," Bill said. "You never seemed to have much aversion to the specimens we have… internally examined."
"But the barboach we dissected didn't bleed!"
Bill looked down at his sliced arm. For a moment, he tried to lift it to examine the wound carefully, an action that was immediately merited with a smack on the wrist by a startled Nurse Joy.
"Don't move your arm unless you want me to sew through a major artery," she said.
Ignoring her, Bill addressed Lanette. "I'm not bleeding."
"I should have known," Lanette said as she threw a brief glance over her shoulder. "You have frozen blood."
"Oh? And why do you say that, madam?"
"Oh, I don't know, William." She injected a subtle amount of venom in the mention of his full name. "Maybe it's because you laughed after that rabid zangoose sliced open your arm. Maybe it's because you watch yourself getting sewn back together like some sort of morbid rag doll."
"Maybe it's something else."
Lanette turned around to see him – rolled up sleeve, nineteen stitches, raised eyebrows, and a knowing smile. She wanted nothing more than to see Nurse Joy strike a nerve.
"There are times when I just wish I could do these experiments without you, Bill."
As Nurse Joy tied the last knot and snipped the string, Bill could only acknowledge Lanette's statement with a wider smile and a few words.
"You certainly have an interesting way of showing it."